fail to imprefs every reader with the vast and increafing importance of Ireland in the political scale of the British empire: and to excite in every good, loyal, and patriotic man, the utmost folicitude for the continuance of internal tranquillity in that country, manifeftly qualified to furnish, in the greateft abundance, the means of fuftaining the power of the united kingdom amidst the momentous changes which Europe feems likely to undergo.

"The recollection of recent events, accompanied by reflection on the nature and inveteracy of thofe principles of difunion, which have hitherto fo frequently had the effects of blafting the growing profperity of Ireland, and rendering it one of the most vulnerable parts of the British dominions, may create defpondency in fome. For my part, I think there are confiderations which strongly tend to excite fenfations of a very different

nature.

66

Surely Irifhmen, of all fects, have fufficiently experienced the diverfified mifchiefs of religious animofity; and muft languish for its utter and final extinction. Surely Irishmen of all parties have had fufficient reafon to lament the calamitous effects of internal feuds and commotions. Surely Irishmen have no longer to learn that dark, foul, and treafonous confpiracies, confederacies, and alliances, not only involve individual ruin, but induce political imbecility, national poverty, humiliation, and fubjection: and that industry, civilization, internal tranquillity, and alacrity in maintaining the authority of the laws, while they must neceffarily be productive of the happy effects, of drawing over a large proportion of British capital, ingenuity, and experience, and eventually giving additional and lucrative employment to thousands, are the true and only means whereby Ireland can attain that enviable pre-eminence which nature has qualified her to enjoy. Surely Irishmen are prepared to admit that although the late political fyftem of their country did undoubtedly fupply the means of rendering it confpicuous amongst the nations of Europe, yet that, under an equitable and wellcemented union, the fifter iflands cannot fail to experience the higheft poffible commercial and political advantages, mutually enriching, ftrengthening, and aggrandizing each other. Surely Irishmen muft derive fome confolation from the thought of their country's having become, after ages of political depreffion and turmoil, a prominent and moft influential part of a vaft empire, diftinguished by an unprecedented combination of exalting circumftances; by great and increafing opulence, high martial renown, undisturbed internal repofe, and perfect civil liberty, enjoyed by all ranks and defcriptious of the community: an empire poffeffing the means of becoming irrefiftible; and much more kely to endure than any which has ever exited,

"Surely

Surely Irishmen must perceive that while, on the one hand, it is demonftrably inconfiftent with the real welfare of their country to urge any factious, frivolous, unfounded, or unnecessary claim; it is, on the other, no lefs fo with that of England, to withhold any benefit which Ireland may acquire a right to enjoy. Surely Irishmen may find grounds for being perfuaded that the ftatefmen of the united kingdom, fenfible of the vast real importance of Ireland, will ever be difpofed to investigate. promptly, patiently, and minutely the grievances and claims of that country; to redress the former if real, and admit the latter if well founded, and notified in the temperate, cautious, fteady, and becoming manner which accords with the fpirit of the British conftitution, and correfponds to the dictates of politi cal wisdom." P. 354•

ART. V. The Hiflory and Antiquities of the County of Leiceifler. By John Nichols, F.S.A. Edinb. and Perth. Vol. IV. Part I.-containing Guthlaxton Hundred. Fol. Pp. 548. Nichols. 1807.

ONE

NE of thofe calamities, againft which human wildom and forefight does not always afford protection, occafions us to ftep a little out of our way to pay a tribute of fympathy, affection, and refpect to an old and valuable friend. A dreadful conflagration has deftroyed the office, printing materials, and vaft literary property of the author of this great national work.

Schelhorn, in his Amoenitates Literariæ, has a differtation upon fcarce books, and the caufes of their becoming scarce. Some are rare becaufe fupprefled by public authority, others becaufe bought up by individuals, or deftroyed by their authors, and great numbers become difficult to attain from the misfortune to which we have above alluded. This has been the fate of many valuable works in different countries, and not unfrequently in our own. It is no long time fince a very large portion of the impreffion of the curious and beautiful edítion of Lucretius, by Mr. Wakefield, perifhed in the flames, and we understand that, with the exception of fuch copies of the volume before us as had been previoufly delivered to fubfcribers, this whole work has been deffroyed. In itfelf, therefore, curious and important, and forming a part of one of the molt elaborate county hiftories shat has ever been pro

duced,

duced, it will now become of extraordinary value, and be ranked among the rareit of books.

Of the former parts a careful, and we truft an accurate, analyfis, will be found in our preceding volumes, as wel mean to extend our account of this to at least another article, which, from the combination of circumftances in which it is involved, it well deferves, we fhall, for the prefent, fatisfy our readers with giving a short abstract of its contents and one fpecimen of its execution.

The volume extends to 542 pages. Of thefe, 425 are occupied by the defcription of the townfhips in the Hundred of Guthlaxton. Thefe townships are Arnfby, Ashby Magna, and Parva, Aylefton, Bittefwell. Blaby, Broughton Aftley, Brunting Thorpe, Catthorpe, Claybrook, Colby, Cottefbach, Dunton Baffet, Enderby, (in Sparkenhoe Hundred), Fofton, Frolefworth, Gilmorton, Kilby, Kilworth, North and South, Kimcote, Knaptoft, Knighton, Leire, Lutterworth, Misterton, the Newark, Oadby, Peatling Magna and Parva, Shawell, Stanford, Stormfworth, Swinford, Whetftone, Wigfton Magna, and Willoughby Waterlefs. The remainder of the volume is occupied by a defeription of the town and antiquities of Leicefter. We cannot give a more agreeable fpecimen of the work than the defcription, which occurs at its very commencement, of Saint Guthlac, the celebrated founder of Croyland Abbey.

"This Hundred feems indebted for the denomination of it to Saint GUTHLAC, a celebrated faint and anchorite, defcended from the blood-royal of the Mercian kings, born A. D. 673, about the termination of the Saxon heptarchy, when Egbert, 17th king of the Weft Saxons, reduced the generality of the Saxon kings under his government, and became the firft fole monarch of this kingdom, having won the affections of all the Weft Saxons by the gentleness of his adminiftration, and by their affistance brought the other parts of the inland under his obedience. was the fon of Penwald, a nobleman of Mercia, who lived in the midland parts of England, and his mother's name was Tetha.

He

"If we may credit the relation given us by Felix the monk*,

the

"St. Guthlac's Life, written by Felix not long after his death, was published by Henfchenius and Pappebrochius, and thence abridged by Capgrave and Harpsfeild. See alfo Britaria Sancta, printed at London, 1745, 4to. p. 217.-Three different

L

BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXI. FEB. 1808.

copies

the fanctity of his future life was foretold by the appearance of a crofs near the houfe of his mother, during her pregnancy with him. However, his younger years were employed in the exercife of arms and military ftudies; and as he grew up to maturity, he took up arms in the defence of his country, and obtained great reputation by his fuccefsful conquefts; though his moderation, even in victory, was fo remarkable, that he generally restored again to the vanquished one-third part of the fpoils which he had taken from them; but at length, tired with this dangerous and laborious calling, and reflecting on the tranfient vanity of worldly glory, and the lamentable end of many celebrated heroes of this world, he bid adieu to war and bloodshed, and ordered his troops to elect a new leader in his room, declaring he would no longer fight under any banner but that of religion. Nor could all the arguments of his affectionate followers diffuade him from his refolutions; for, A. D. 697, he with great eagerness and hafte retired to the famous monaftery of Reppington, or Ripondon (Rep. ton), in Derbyshire, and there embraced a religious life. Here our faint fpent fome time; but, aiming at ftill greater aufterities as the road to abfolute perfection, he determined to lead an ereme. tical life; and, for his greater mortification, chofe for the place of his retirement the ifle of Croyland, at that time a most horrid and uninhabited place. Of this his feat of retirement he took poffeffion on the feaft of St. Bartholomew, A. D. 699*, being then but 26 years old; and ever after efteemed and reverenced that Apoftle as his peculiar patron and defender.

"St. Guthlac acquired great reputation †, and was much re

copies of this life are extant in the British Museum. One of thefe (which is copied in the Appendix to the Hiftory of Croyland, Bibl. Top. Brit. No. XI. p. 131.) is in Harl. MSS. 3097. 6. A fecond, whence the divifion of the chapters is chiefly taken, is among the Catton MSS. Nero E. 1. a large folio vellum MS. written about the tenth century, and contains the lives of about 140 faints, amongst which, at N. 44, is that of St. Guthlac, in 22 pages, double columns. The edges are damaged by the fire, but the writing is all preferved. In the Royal MSS. 13 A. is an older copy of the fame, which has been collated with fome other MS. and explanations interlined. At the end of the laft-mentioned MS. is written, Autor hujus libri dicitur effe Felix Croylandienfis, qui claruit anno D'yi 730 fub Ethelbaldo Merciorum rege. Scripfit etiam Mattheus Parifienfis vitam Guthlaci; & Gulielmus Ramfey, fed car mine."

"Willis's Hiftory of Mitred Abbeys, vol. I. fol. 72.”. "+ William of Malmesbury, fol. 166. b. n. 50.”

Spected

fpected in his religious retreat at Croyland, where he preferred the exercife of piety and devotion to that of arms and warfare. Hiftorians inform us, that nature feemed to have inclined him for the toils of the latter profeffion; but he exchanged the military for a fpiritual ardour, and in a few years the fpirit of war de creafed in him, and the practice of religion became his ruling paf. fion.

"Neither in this his folitary abode had he fewer or lefs terrible foes to contend with, than when he directed the scene of war on a more public ftage; for the monk Felix, who wrote his life, affures us, that he was disturbed here by evil fpirits, and infernal delutions, to as great a degree as St. Anthony ever was. The fame author relates farther, that St. Guthlac was once hurried away from his cell by demons, and carried by violence to the very gates of hell, into which they threatened to caft him, for having invaded their own ifland of Croyland, as they called it; but his tutelar faint, Bartholomew, defended him in this as well as all other perils, and made them convey him quietly back again to his own cell; fo that the faucy devils had only their labour for their pains. To make our faint amends for the difagreeable appearances of thefe vexatious vifitors, he had (if our author Felix is not mifinformed) the daily fociety of an angel, who converfed with him, and remained invifible to every one but St. Guthlac himfelf; for his difciple Beccelin declares, he had often heard him difcourfing in his folitary hours with fome other perfon, but was ever ignorant who it was, till St. Guthlac himself told him as he lay at the point of death.

"The fanctity of this young hermit was fo remarkable, that the venerable Hedda, bifhop of Dorchester, and afterwards of Winchefter, not only paid him a vifit in his retirement, but also ordained him priest, making him fit down at the table with him; a form this faint had not been accustomed to fince the day he first profeffed thefe religious aufterities t. Guthlac was alfo in the highest efteem with King Ethelbald, who, long before he attained the dignity of a crown, had received prophetic affurances from St. Guthlaç, that he should one day or other be a king; and accordingly, on the death of Coelred, A. D. 719, he was called to the throne of Mercia.

"Monaft. Angl. vol. I. fol. 163. 8.”

"Hedda was a man whofe example (fays Godwin, fol. 211.) was of more utility to his charge, than his eloquence in the pulpit; and, according to Bede, though he abounded not in literature, he had the evidence of his good government demonftrated by many miracles. He died A. D. 705, or thereabouts, and is calendared as a faint on the 7th of July, and lies buried at Glastonbury. Willis's Mitred Abbeys, vol. I. fol. 99." "At

L 2